Plant defence depends on speed: the sooner a plant recognises its attacker, the more effective its defence response will be. Over the course of evolution, plants have acquired the ability to prime their immune system after perception of specific environmental signals. This he...

Advances in biotechnology propose innovative tools particularly relevant for public health application by genetic manipulation of microbial symbionts of arthropod vectoring disease. The symbiont engineering prevents the transmission of pathogens to human by interfering with t...

The objective of this project is to overcome current limitations for antibody production that are inherent to the extant immune system of vertebrates. This will be done by creating an all-in-one artificial/synthetic counterpart based exclusively on prokaryotic parts, devices ...

Animal welfare is a topic of highest societal and scientific priority. Here, I propose to use genomic and epigenetic tools to provide a new perspective on the biology of animal welfare. This will reveal mechanisms involved in modulating stress responses. Groundbreaking aspect...

"Actinomycetes produce a wealth of important natural products, which play a pivotal role in modern drug-based therapy of various diseases. Recent whole-genome sequencing projects have revealed that the number of biosynthetic gene clusters significantly outnumbers the natural ...

Teleost fish are the most primitive bony vertebrates that contain immunoglobulins, although belonging to different classes than those of mammals, having only IgM, IgD and IgT. No Ig maturation to more specific class is observed in fish, providing them with an antibody respons...

In order to advance single-molecule fluorescence spectroscopy to the next level, handling and analysis of single molecules has to become broadly available. A further quantum leap is required to proceed to commercially successful applications such as drug screening and medical...

A long term goal of synthetic biology is the assembly of a cell from its individual components. A genetic element based on synthetic nucleic acids capable of stable propagation, a synthetic episome, is the minimal genetic element required for the systematic development of all...

Many aphid species are restricted to one or few host plants, while some aphids, many of which are of agricultural importance, can infest a wide range of plant species. An important observation is that aphids spend a considerable time on nonhost species, where they probe the l...

The goal of this proposed research initiative is to engineer chloroplasts into production units for high value bio-active natural products. The first aim is to re-route the biosynthetic pathways for these compounds into the chloroplast and to boost compound formation by optim...